Preemption, leverage, and financing constraintsMichi Nishihara and Takashi Shibata () Review of Financial Economics, 2014, vol. 23, issue 2, 75-89 Abstract: This paper investigates the interactions between preemptive competition and leverage in a duopoly market. We investigate both a case in which the firms have optimal financial structures, and a case in which financing constraints require firms to finance their investments by debt. Our findings are that the second mover always leaves the duopoly market before the leader, although the leader may exit before the follower's entry. The leverage effects of debt financing can increase the value of a firm and accelerate investment, even in the presence of preemptive competition. Notably, financing constraints can delay preemptive investment and improve firm values in preemptive equilibrium. Indeed, the leader's high leverage due to financing constraints can lower the first-mover advantage and weaken preemptive competition. Especially with strong first-mover advantage, the financing constraint effects can dominate the leverage effects. These findings are almost consistent with the empirical evidence, which shows that high leverage leads to competitive disadvantage and mitigates product market competition. Keywords: Preemption; Duopoly; Capital structure; Financing constraints; Real options (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:revfin:v:23:y:2014:i:2:p:75-89 DOI: 10.1016/j.rfe.2013.10.001 Access Statistics for this article Review of Financial Economics is currently edited by T. K. Mukherjee and G. Whitney More articles in Review of Financial Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.